Giovanni Cortez

Music of the Caribbean

November 9th, 2015

KONGO: Authenticity vs. Caricature

The concert, which took place at the Johnson/Kaplan Auditorium, was centered

on the performance and celebration of Haitian roots music in several forms. While the

show began with some introductions and a film on Gran Bwa, esteemed Haitian Rara

drummer from Brooklyn, the night revolved around three different performance including

Q&A’s for the final two. The first of the three was the shortest and perhaps the most

easily engaging as well. It was a single man drumming a handful of Haitian grooves,

inviting the audience to join in by playing the syncopated hits. The experience was a bit

of a challenge as the drummer wasn’t exactly clear on which notes the audience was

supposed to clap on, and then proceeded to scold them when they failed. When it seemed

like the hits were alternating, he would quickly switch and confuse the pattern. It was a

bit baffling and maybe purposefully so as a playful gesture from the drummer. I argue

that this part was the most accessible of the three performances because of how basic the

presentation was, a single man, on a single drum, telling everyone exactly (kind of) what

to do. Apart from his traditional Haitian garments and instrument, this felt like the easiest

of the three performances to devoid of any cultural significance and simply join in. It

certainly had to do with the minimalism of this particular performer himself, least amount

of equipment and individuals on stage, that the audience can reduce this to an accessible

place of merely clapping along. (I want to note that I think for the most part it is

important to never remove cultural significance from something so deeply rooted and
representative of a people. My comment here is just to provide some insight to the place

of the spectator, i.e. someone not familiar with the genre, or in a class studying Haitian

music, etc.)

The second performance consisted of three musicians: two singers, positioned to

the right and center of the stage, and a woman, on the far left, controlling some sort of

drum pad / synth over a table. To my understanding, the songs they did were not original

compositions, but standard tunes to the Haitian tradition, something that I think conflicted

and complicated with the form in which they played. I can surmise that the approach was

meant to reflect a more modern take on the Haitian roots music, especially the use of

electronics and the juxtaposition between the dress of these musicians vs. the first and the

last, though there was something jarring about the experience of hearing a drum machine

play the same tones that the real drums, right behind them on stage, would. I can see this

particular performance was an attempt to connect with the audience a bit more, being at a

school so heavily invested in music making. The thing is though, I personally felt further

away from these performers than the first and last. There was something about this

modern take on the music that felt deeper and more complex in implication; I couldn’t

help to think that the process of getting to this point, choosing that form of presentation

of Haitian roots music, a take certainly more modern, was elusive as someone who never

played Rara at all. It is sometimes simple to observe customs in a traditional way, even

when we are not involved, but the comprehension begins to blur when those customs get

further away from that conventional form, suddenly less so inclusive. I enjoyed these

musicians and appreciated their interpretation, but their style felt more like a personal

evolution through this music, more about their places on that stage than mine. Their
perspective of the Haitian music they play must have started as it does to anyone, in its

most traditional form, but it takes years of playing, expounding, practicing, and

theorizing before saying “this is the way I’m going to do it,” a notion that makes this

style of performance less approachable (though not negatively). It is a bit of a

complicated thought, but there was something more authentic about this second group

than the final, the KONGO Haitian Roots Ensemble, a group clearly focused on a degree

of genuineness to their bona fide culture, each member cladded in traditional wear,

playing traditional instruments, all in front of this specifically curated backdrop/scenery,

expressing their closeness to that indigenous setting.

The stage for KONGO was set up as the following: seven drums in total, the

smallest being on the far left and all the others were varied in size, with three singers

functioning as a choir to the right of the drums all in front of culturally decorated drapes

and a projection of trees, completing the background. There were four drummers in total,

one playing each of the smaller ones to the left and a master drummer controlling four at

the same time. The leader of the ensemble worked at the front of the stage, sometimes

switching the drums when one of the members got up to dance. The instruments on stage

included: the drums, the bamboo trumpet vaksens, the shakers, a conch shell, and a whip,

which may or may not have any musical significance. Overall, there was a lot of

alternating that happened between pieces of the ensemble substituting each other on

different instruments, whether it was drums or vaksens.

The group played for the longest amount of time, with little intermission in

between songs, many of which felt connected in atmosphere and not necessarily in

composition or song structure itself. As akin to the genre, the tunes were all mostly
percussion and vocal driven with the vaksens far less featured, taking a minor role in the

performance. The “call-and-response” style was evident in a majority of the songs,

working well with the intensity and leadership of front man Öneza Lafontant, who also

played a shaker along with the three female singers and a whip. Lafontant was the main

personality of the group and operated in the forefront on the stage with a great deal of

power and force. A moment that stood out was the portion of a song when the drummers

had began a steadily increasing drum-roll like pattern with Lafontant screaming “sanble”

over and over again, which I believe means come together.

Dance was a main proponent of this section of the show as well. If it wasn’t

Lafontant, then it was the choir who was frequently moving in unison, or a member of the

ensemble who would switch out to take to their feet. There were points in which a good

deal of the ensemble was out of their original place, substituting for the person who was

dancing. In that way, the performance was very versatile and dynamic. Every member

seemed competent in whatever position they were put in, expressing a sense of

familiarity, but also naturalness not deriving from practice, but more so spirit. It was

undoubtedly equally entertaining as it was engaging. There were moments were it felt

that the group was very unconcerned with the audience, slightly unaware of being on a

stage, until they began to bring audience members to the stage to dance with them. At

which point, the show became very much so a spectacle. I can understand the effort and

the reason why to attempt to reach out in this inclusive manner, but I think it diminished

some of that genuineness a group like this survives off of. At first, the people they

brought seemed deliberate, being mostly people either involved in the program that

brought them to the New School or people of color. That extension in many ways could
be comprehended as a dialogue, an effort to promote black youth to look back in their

culture and both indulge and embrace. Before long though, the entire thing got goofy and

I was enjoying the wrong things, forgetting about the music and the tradition, shifting my

focus to silly white people who can’t dance. Maybe they want to voice the fact that this

tradition could be for anyone, but I argue that it is or rather that it has to be. I don’t

believe one has to sacrifice authenticity to gain accessibility and reach an audience. I

think it is equally as important for us, as audiences of cultures that we don’t belong to, to

realize that as well. Watching Haitian roots musicians/dances do the Naenae is pretty

funny, sure, but it simply isn’t what a performance like that needs. We shouldn’t neither

want nor expect cultures to put themselves in context to our contemporary references and

us. I question whether this was the premise of the performance at all and how whether or

not the show was “successful” is contingent upon that answer.